The use of AI in companies: who is responsible for what it accesses, generates, and influences?

Your company probably uses more AI than the official list of approved tools indicates. Chatbots, copilots, automations, and analytical tools have already become part of the routine of customer service, sales, marketing, and operations teams, often adopted independently by each department without going through a formal approval process.

The issue is not just the use of AI. It is also knowing where it is being used within the company, how each team uses these tools in its daily activities, and what controls exist around them. Without this mapping, the company does not know the true extent of its exposure to this type of risk.

Two questions to begin the mapping process

The first step is simple to state but is rarely already answered: which AI tools are being used within the company, and have they been formally mapped and approved, or has each team adopted them independently?

The second question looks inside these tools: what data is entered into them? Personal, financial, and strategic data or customer information circulating within a third party tool changes the level of risk involved. Without visibility into how the tools are used and what data circulates through them, it becomes difficult to control this risk and even more difficult to respond to it if someone asks.

Who has access and who reviews the results

Mapping the tools solves only part of the problem. The next question concerns people: are there defined profiles, permissions, and access criteria for those who use these tools, or is access granted by default to anyone who requests it?

It is also important to determine where human oversight exists. When AI recommends, classifies, or generates a response that will affect a customer, a contract, or an internal decision, someone must validate that result before it has an impact on the operation. Without this verification point, the company delegates a decision without having decided to delegate it.

What if the company needs to explain it later?

All this mapping is only valuable if the company can reconstruct what happened when necessary. Which tool was used in a particular decision? What data was entered? Who reviewed the result? What was actually approved?

Without this traceability, a risk that began as a technological issue becomes a governance and internal control problem, exactly the type of gap that usually emerges during an audit, a due diligence process, or a customer inquiry.